Solace
by aetherlumos
Summary: The forest has changed but he is still the same.


He lets go of her hand as soon as their feet collide against the ground, but he immediately regrets it. His chest feels tight and his throat is closing up, like he can't breathe — he gasps for air desperately and collapses to the leaf-covered earth. All he feels is pain and this place only magnifies it, emphasizes every ache and scar that makes him want to scratch his skin away to be somebody else completely. His breath hitches, their destination almost like a stab of betrayal. He shakes his head into his trembling hands, trying to understand why she's brought him here but the panic in his mind won't allow him to think properly.

"Wh—why?" he chokes out in an attempt to speak.

Hermione wrings her hands together and has to look away. She didn't expect his reaction to be like this and she can only hope Harry will forgive her. "Because, Harry," she says, gently grabbing his arm and pulling him to stand. "You need to face what happened. To realize that none of this was your fault." She holds his gaze firmly, but she can tell her words are going straight through him, sloshing against his ears like sludge.

"I can't—can't," he wheezes, scratching at his collar to peel the fabric away. His nails dig into his skin, red angry trails in their wake as he jerks away from her grasp.

"Can't breathe," he cries, scrambling back so she can't touch him anymore. She stares at him with wide eyes, watching him cower away from her is an odd sight. She still has trouble understanding this is what the war has cost him and the idea of what happened to him is so vague and obscure, she tries to forget it even happened at all. She had always been gathered under the protection of his strength, but now, as she stares at Harry, trembling hands running up and down the length of his thighs, mouthing some broken mantra, she realizes he is broken and she doesn't know how to fix him.

"Harry, please—please, stop it," she says desperately. She crouches down to his level and grabs his hands, holding them in her own, but he recoils from her touch. She whimpers but raises her hands away from him to show she is not a threat, undeterred. "It's me, Hermione. It's only me. Look at me. Just look at me, not at anything else." She holds his gaze firmly.

It's been five months since they found him and Hermione isn't sure if she is lucky that this is the first time she has seen Harry like this. He almost always knows when it is coming on, when something has triggered such a reaction, and Ron, looking as if the world has stopped, carries his prone form into his room, hidden behind closed doors.

But here, they are alone with nowhere for Harry to hide and she doesn't know what to do. She tries to observe him clinically, but it is hard when she can see the tremor in his shoulders and his face wet with tears.

"Now focus and take a deep breath," she tells him.

He nods tightly in obedience and recognition, his eyes wide and fearful. His brow scrunches up in concentration as he tries to keep a constant focus on Hermione, just her, instead of the sweet hum of the forest that vibrates, the naked trees and rusted leaves that remind him of something he wants to keep buried and forgotten. His breath rattles in his chest, ragged and mangled through his nose, but he tries again, matching his breathing with Hermione's. He can still feel the panic, creeping up like a disease and he feels something seeping along his hands. When he looks down, there is blood smeared on his palms, sticky and congealing. He scrubs them on the ground, trenching up worn dirt but the crimson stain won't wipe off.

"Oh…Oh, God!" he stammers, desperately trying to clean his hands of something that isn't there, and Hermione watches in absolute fear as Harry starts to claw at his arms as if to peel back healed wounds. "It's everywhere, it's everywhere!" His head jerks in a wiry motion; he hears leaves crunching under the heavy weight of boots, the distant sound of harsh Latin and the rush of spells whizzing past his ears.

"They're coming. He's going to find me," he whispers, horrified.

"Nobody is coming, Harry. We're safe here," Hermione says, speaking sharply to hold his attention.

But he stills suddenly, spine stiff and rigid for a moment, then crawls away from Hermione and retches by the trunk of a tree. Hermione sighs sadly and pulls her wand out from her front pocket and moves to kneel beside Harry. Her hand wavers above his back tentatively, daring to soothe him, but when she hears a quiet whimper from him and his shoulders flinch, her hand presses against his back in smooth circles with the wild hope that she could drive the pain away.

Her nose wrinkles when the sick, warm odor of vomit hits her, but she stays by him. He finally rolls away from the mess, but for all that he has heaved and expelled from the inside, he still feels a blackness filling him up.

Hermione waves her wand deftly and the vomit disappears. Harry wipes his mouth with the cuff of his sleeve and slowly sits up. His eyes search crazily for any threat or figures lurking in the shadows. When he looks down, his hands are pale and covered in dirt, but there is no sign of blood.

The sound of their silence is palpable and sickening, and Hermione wishes either of them would have the courage to speak.

"Why am I here?" he finally asks through clenched teeth. Hermione flinches at the edge in his tone, angry yet still shaking with terror.

"I thought it would help by bringing you here. I thought—if you knew there was nothing that could hurt you anymore, you could have moved on better. I just can't bear to see you so…scared," she says calmly.

Harry shakes his head fervently. "No, you don't _understand_! I can't do this. Please, take me away, take me back! I want to go home," he begs.

"No, not until you realize that you're safe! Harry, I don't know what happened, but—"

"That's right, you don't know!" he interrupts, close to screaming. "You don't know anything about what they did to me, what I _let_ them do to me. And you can't just wish it all to go away and pretend like it's so easy because it's not!"

"Show me," she says softly, partly because she doesn't think she can handle hearing Harry's broken voice any longer. "Show me where they found you."

"W—what?" He looks at her stunned. "Are you bloody mad?"

"Show me," she repeats forcefully. "I need to know."

"You don't deserve to know anything! You don't have the right!" He shrieks, hands clenched into fists by his sides.

Hermione flinches. She has never seen Harry this furious before, but she knows behind his fire there is a trembling fear, she just has to exploit it. She feels a pit in her stomach as she thinks of what she might have to do.

"I don't deserve to know, or you just don't want to tell me? Maybe if you weren't so unbelievably ignorant, you'd realize you weren't the only one who fought a war or the only one who's been hurt! But I can take you back to Grimmauld Place and let you wallow in your room with Kreacher if that's really what you want."

As soon as the words leave her mouth, she feels sick and there is an awful taste in her mouth. Harry looks devastated and she wants to cry.

"You—you think I—that I like being there? You think I want to sit in that damn house all day because I can't manage to get up and leave my bedroom? You think I want Ron to have to drag me away so no one has to see me like this? That I _want_ to feel so—so…"

"So what, Harry?"

"Ashamed!" he screams. His chin starts to quiver and he looks down. "I'm so ashamed of myself, and so _angry _with myself that I could have let this happened. I'm a complete mess, I feel trapped and weak and absolutely worthless and I—I feel—I feel like I want to die."

Harry is panting now, his chest heaving with pained breaths. He doesn't feel any better telling her this, and he wonders why she thinks saying more will help him.

Tears are streaming down Hermione's face and she swallows back a sob. "Show me, Harry. Show me, and I promise I'll let you go back," she whispers after a moment of silence.

Harry nods with resignation and blank eyes. He looks around to assess where they are and begins to walk. After a moment's hesitation, Hermione follows.

* * *

They spend an hour walking in a seemingly endless path. Hermione is careful to keep her distance and trails behind Harry. His back is tense and she can sense his frustration every time he curses under his breath. He wipes his damp forehead with clammy hands and tugs at his hair to force it out of his eyes, but it's more to keep his hands occupied than anything else.

Hermione tries to stay useful by marking every few trees with a Painting Charm and slashes the falling branches and vines with her wand. She stays alert, tracking the ground for any animal or ditch but suddenly she's pressed against Harry's back and stumbles in her steps.

"Harry?"

Before them, there is a clear lake. The air is warmer and the buzz of insects fills them up. The pebbles under Hermione's feet crunch as she sinks into the gravel, but she climbs back up, digging her heels in the ground to keep her feet planted. She stands next to Harry and glances at him with concern. She holds her breath as she anticipates for his reaction to be something volatile and frightening, but he only stares ahead at the lake with wild eyes.

"Th—this is it. It used to be frozen, during winter..." His voice comes out like a croak, strangled and stifled. He can feel the panic clutch him, trickling into his heart because he knows his mind wants to show him something horrid, whether he is ready to experience it or not.

The tranquil water terrifies him, and he can feel himself shaking. Tears spring to his eyes as the reality of what happened forces its way into his head and he can't understand how the memory comes back after he has suppressed it for so long.

He wants to be alone to process this, not in here and not in front of Hermione. He tries to concentrate on her there, staring at him, and if he can drudge up enough anger on her prying, he can focus. And here, in this moment, he can't afford to lose focus.

He feels his insides swell and there is a salty fluid in his mouth, and he knows he is going to be sick again. His knees buckle and he slumps to the ground, grazing his knees. In a fresh surge of fury, an anger that his body will not cooperate, he punches his hand into the rocks and the sound of the harsh contact of bone against earth is drowned by his piercing cries.

He hits harder and harder, to feel the throbbing pain in his hand grow deeper, so it will be all he can lay his attention on. Hermione is tugging at his shoulder to pull him up, screaming for him to stop but he doesn't recognize her. On the third time, there is a sickening crunch and he has to stifle a wail.

He brings his hand into his lap, two fingers curled into his palm and notices the rocks are smeared with his blood. It leaks into the water and spirals almost elegantly. Harry pulls himself away from the lake and his shoe kicks into the water, creating an ebb of ripples. He shuts his eyes tightly; he doesn't want to see himself in the reflection of the lake, scarred and hideous, he wants to fade away.

Before Harry can do anything else, Hermione grabs both his wrists and presses them against his chest in a strong grip. Harry struggles in her grasp and howls when his injured hand crushes into his body.

"Let me go! Let go! Get off of me!" he bawls.

"I don't think I can do that, Harry," she says, her voice watery.

Harry only twists frantically, desperate to be out of her reach and roars, his tone aware and full of pain. "Let me go! Leave me alone! I hate you, I _hate _you! Get away from me!" A sob fills the air and Harry slumps into her shoulder wearily.

Hermione can feel her own hot tears sliding down her cheeks and into Harry's hair. She wraps her arms around him firmly and feels his whole frame shudder against her.

"I hate you," he cries into her chest.

"I know."

* * *

I know it is a bit ambiguous as to what happened to Harry during the war, but I do have a clear idea in my head of what it was. I just decided it would be a little more mysterious and more like a snippet of a scene or something, which is why I went with present-tense. Although, I think you can still sort of gather what happened, but if it bothers too many people about not having a clear explanation, I can always change it.

Thanks for reading!


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